hong kong

The Hong Kong police announced on Monday they would investigate the alleged assault on photographer Richard Jones by Zimbabwe’s first lady, Grace Mugabe, while she was on vacation. On January 15, Jones claimed Mugabe ordered her bodyguard to hold the photographer down while she punched him repeatedly in the face near Hong Kong’s exclusive Shangri-la…

Bob Dietz called attention to the Chinese propaganda department’s recent 21-point press directive, first reported by the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. The whole thing in English and Chinese is posted today at Berkeley’s China Digital Times. Among the orders given to the domestic media during the Olympic Games is that they are not to report on…

Hong Kong, August 22, 2008—Chinese police should halt ongoing harassment of photographers seeking to document pro-Tibet protests in Beijing, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today in the wake of reports that two video bloggers have been detained and two Associated Press journalists obstructed. Video bloggers Brian Conley and Jeff Rae were detained early Tuesday…

Hong Kong, August 20, 2008–Despite appeals from his employer and questions from the International Olympic Committee, Chinese authorities have continued to bar Radio Free Asia reporter Dhondup Gonsar from traveling to Beijing to cover the Games. Gonsar, an American citizen of Tibetan ethnicity, was one of two journalists for the U.S. government-funded broadcaster whose applications…

China returns to the forefront this morning as the Olympic Games are nearing an end. The Associated Press has a story about human rights groups’ frustration at the lack of outcry, along with protests against myriad rights abuses. The story quotes CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, Bob Dietz, who is working out of Hong Kong. “In…

We released another alert about Dhondup Gonsar today. He’s the Tibetan RFA reporter who is stuck in Hong Kong waiting for a visa that RFA was told had been set aside for him and RFA’s Mandarin service reporter Jill Ku Martin. We first raised Dhondup’s case on August 7, and have stayed in touch with…

Hong Kong, August 15, 2008–The Committee to Protect Journalists is greatly concerned that the government of South Korea ordered home documentary filmmaker Kim Young Me from Iraq, where she was on assignment.

Hong Kong, August 14, 2008–John Ray, a reporter for British television ITN, was detained and roughed up by police while covering a pro-Tibet student demonstration in Beijing on Wednesday. Ray said he was dragged into a nearby restaurant and forcibly held down by police, ITN reported.

China’s media response to the story of the stabbing of two Americans was standard procedure: The government took charge of a sensitive story and determined what would be said. Hong Kong reporters might break new ground, but look at the mainland’s media coverage (here’s Kristin Jones’s analysis) and the only story you will see is…

Last night, a staffer at Radio Television Hong Kong told me that he is worried about the timing of the appointment of a new head for RTHK. An official government announcement Thursday, the day before the Olympic Games open, said that 65-year-old Franklin Wong Wah-kay will become RTHK’s new head. A long-time Hong Kong government…